Madmen Tell Tales, Dead Men Don't
by quizzler219
Summary: She's abused. He's traumatized. They're both mentally unstable. Throw rivaling gangs into the mix and things just get complicated. Can the two still meet despite their crumbling worlds? AU


Hiya! This is the first story I've ever written at least semi seriously. I hope you enjoy because I'm kind of satisfied with this first chapter. The end of the chapter is a little rushed though, so pardon me.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its' characters, this applies to the whole story.

* * *

The anesthetic burned her nostrils. This bleached white castle was far too bright for her dark world, the people much too cheery. They would smile at her as they drove needles into her skin, unknowingly pricking her soul. How were they happy? This world was so rotten it made her want to barf. She just wanted to disappear. Suicide wasn't an option though. They would have to move her body and rearrange her belongings. In the end she would be more trouble to others.

Besides, she couldn't leave Hanabi alone with that man. What kind of big sister would she be if she left her sister to suffer.

Click

The door opened and the most disgusting person she had ever seen in her life walked through. His waist-length hair looked as if it had been fried in chicken grease and brushed back into a ponytail. He stepped closer towards her, almost hesitantly.

"I'm sorry, Hinata. It won't happen again."

It was a constant thing. He beat her and then apologized. Hit her some more, and begged for forgiveness.

"I-It's okay." Lie. How the hell was stabbing her with a broken beer bottle okay? He had always hurt her with his fist. Occasionally he would use a blunt weapon but he had never actually stabbed her. It had been bad enough to warrant admission to the hospital. He probably told them she had gotten into a fight with some local thugs. That was always the cover story. That she was a troubled delinquent and they moved from place to place because of it.

Truth was that he was abusive and their relationship was toxic. The fumes were overwhelming and starting to slowly overcome her. It wouldn't be long before her mind completely broke. She was actually kind of anticipating it. Maybe when the last of her sanity shattered she would go ballistic and kill him. No death sentence for her. Insanity is always a plausible reason to murder someone after all.

There was an extremely awkward pause in which he shuffled around the room a bit. Readjusting the curtains and fixing the flowers an extremely kind nurse had placed on her bed stand.

It wasn't until the door opened and her little sister entered that some of the tension was relieved.

Hanabi was 12 years old despite the fact she was only 4'7. She wore her dark hair in a way that obscured most of her face from vision, leaving one eye visible. The other eye had been busted up during an, er… incident.

It had happened when Hanabi was only four. Hinata's mom had left him in favor of a different man, Hiashi had been so angry that he had put his hands on them. It was the first of many beatings that would occur.

She could remember it clear as day. It had been storming pretty hard that night and Hanabi had gotten scared so naturally she went to go lie down next to Hinata. Hinata heard shouting that screeched in her ears so terribly it made her blood boil.

She climbed out of bed and peered through the rail bars of the stairs, almost like a prisoner watching the guards pace across the facility.

"It's not like you love me anyway! Always ignoring me and treating me like I'm some sort of trophy. To be admired but not touched, seen but not heard!" Her mom's words would stick with her. Her words were powerful.

"I CARE ABOUT YOU!" Her father roared. His throat sounding as if the pinkness had been scraped out with a butter knife.

There was a pause before her mother's eyes blazed a fiery white, surging with something a young child could not comprehend.

"Perhaps you care about your image," Her voice was a whisper now. Hinata hadn't even noticed Hanabi sit down next to her.

"but I know for a fact you don't care about me."

Hiashi stood there, clamoring for words. He was shocked to say the words had obviously burned him. He knew it was the truth and boy did the truth hurt.

Hinata watched as her mother gathered her things and left without a word. Why hadn't she even said goodbye? Did she not care about them?

Hiashi's shoulders shook with rage as he cursed at the wind. He started to fling things across the room, shattering the family photo they had taken just last week.

"Stop!" Somehow Hanabi's squeaky voice resonated throughout the entire house. Hinata hadn't even noticed she'd left the room.

She latched onto their dad, her tiny arms wound around his huge leg. Hinata's heart sank. What was happening? Why had Momma and Papa fought so viciously? Why wasn't she here, holding them tight and explaining everything to them?

"If you break the good stuff, there's only bad stuff left." Hanabi's illiterate words seemed to fuel something in Hiashi, making him grab her head with his large hand, thumb embedding itself into the deep sockets of her eyeball.

Hinata could barely scream before her younger sister was thrown across the room, just as the family photo had been.

Sadness swirled and twisted with anger to form something inexplicably dangerous inside the young girl. The horrified look on Hiashi's face only further fueled this emotion. He was acting as if he hadn't meant to hurt her.

But it had been his hand that had hurt her younger sister. His hand that had plunged into her eye. His hand that had broken the photo frame. His hand the destroyed their family.

His hand destroyed us…

His hand destroyed…

Hand destroyed...

Destroyed han...

Destroy his hand!

The leaves started to feather off of the tree known as her mind. Fall had come, obliterating the fun summer that had once been there.

She ran down the stairs and lunged at him, plunging her teeth into his hairy hands. He yelped with pain as he threw her off into the wall.

Crack. That had been her rib. It stung like the disinfectant her mom had used when she scraped up her knee. Only a million times worse. The tears started to well up in her eyes. This was nothing like a scraped knee.

She couldn't go down just yet though, Hanabi had to be protected. She turned her head to try to get a look at her.

Her younger sister was sprawled across the ground, shoulders shaking from sobbing she assumed. It wasn't until Hanabi had thoughts along the same line as Hinata and turned her head in her direction that she saw the gruesome sight.

Blood leaked from her eye while tears flowed from the other. Her face had this pained look on it that made Hinata's chest hurt even more.

What had he done? Why had he done it?

Turning to look at him she saw a sight that made her chest constrict tighter than Hanabi's had. Why was he the one looking so pained? He was the one that had put them through pain.

It would be years before she could even hope to understand that look.

She was drawn from reminiscing as the man she called father spoke. She had moments like that alot, ones where she would think hours had passed when it had only been a few seconds.

"We're moving again as soon as Hinata's out of the hospital."

They didn't respond. Hanabi was pretending to be mute in front of everyone except for her sister, and Hinata was afraid of saying the wrong thing again. It was what had put her in the hospital in the first place.

He left the room, leaving the two siblings to themselves.

"Hinata," the younger of the two spoke. Her voice raspy as always from never using it.

"It's getting worse. He went a little further than normal this time." The eldest Hyuuga child couldn't help but but agree.

But what was she to do? She wanted so badly to leave, to whisk Hnabi away from the hell that had become their lives. But she was trapped. Every time they moved her father always mad sure to become friends with the local authorities. Making it so utterly difficult to get help. Not to mention that the youngest of them was twelve, and Child Protective Services tended not to care about children over the age of 10. They were trapped, and screwed, and suffocating.

Hanabi shuffled a bit, eye rolling around the room like something straight out of Harry Potter.

Hinata noticed this, nothing seemed to ever escape her eyes. "I-Is something bothering you?"

This question lolled around the room, an unsettling feeling hovering between the two. Hanabi was hesitant to answer, but did so anyway.

"You got hurt because of me," She mumbled nearly inaudibly. "if I had come home earlier he wouldn't have been so angry and you wouldn't have jumped in front of me."

Hinata's heart froze. She was blaming herself? She, who knew full well that it was her father that was in the wrong, was blaming herself? Hinata sat up fiercely, making pain shoot through abdomen, she didn't care though. She had to clear things up.

Her eyes drew fire, fiercely staring into her younger sister's eyes, "It is not your fault. Unless you threw my body in front of that beer bottle, you're not responsible for it."

She watched the shock and relief roll around on her sister's face, finding a place to settle down and sink in. And once the emotions had discovered a nice spot, Hanabi cried through what eye she had left. They held each other and sat like that for a little while.

* * *

The next day Hinata had been told she could go home. But before the discharge papers could be signed, they forced her to speak to a counselor of sorts, going along with the cover up that she was a deranged delinquent.

He was a short and gruff old man, yet somehow managed to hold some twinkle of kindness in his eyes despite his rough appearance. He clearly looked as if he didn't want to be there.

"So, is there any reason as to why you feel the need to fight the way you do?"

The old man was blunt and straight to the point. Things would go much quicker this way, Hinata decided she liked the old man.

She shook her as to disagree, "No, n-not really. Fighting is fun, exciting. Some sort of adrenaline rushes through your veins and your flight or fight instinct start to kick in."

She was getting a little excited now, talking about this was getting her riled up.

Okay so maybe the part about her being a delinquent wasn't as far fetched as she originally thought. She couldn't fight for shit, but it was fun to be around the fight, to watch others get beat and to have to run from the scene to protect yourself.

Years of abuse had taken it's toll on her, and she wasn't as mentally stable as she should've been. Abuse does different things to different people. Abuse made her like hot blooded fist fights, but not appreciate them when she was getting beat by her father. She hated the abuse from him, but loved to watch others fight. Basically, consensual abuse was her thing. If two people were exchanging life threatening blows it excited her, but if the abuse was one sided her heart clenched and her throat ached. Perhaps it was the simple fact that in an actual fight, you're asking for it. You're not some innocent person that happens to be unlucky, you actually have a choice. She wanted a choice. She wanted to fight back against her abuser. But she couldn't so she watched others do it in place of her.

"Ah, so you're an adrenaline junkie? That clears things up. Thank you and goodbye." The gruff old man gathered his things and left. And within a few minutes Hinata herself was gone too.

* * *

Hmm, it took me forever to write this for some reason.

I wrote the first thousand or so words within one session, but didn't complete the rest until a few weeks later in another session. Altogether it was written pretty quickly, the span of time however, not so much.


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